Tips

• Do a thorough search of your property and surrounding neighbourhood. Look in sheds, under buildings, in parks especially along waterways - anywhere your animal could be trapped - and look inside ceilings for cats.
  
  
• Ask your neighbours and people you see out walking their dogs. Ask about females in season if your animal is male and entire.
  
  
• Do a letter drop and put notices up in your local shops. Include information such as a description and photo (if possible) of the animal and a contact phone number. Put the date lost on all notices.
  
  
• Ring all the local veterinary clinics and extend this outward. A person often picks up an animal and takes it to a clinic they know, not necessarily the closest one.
  
  
• Contact all Animal Shelters in your city. For example, the Lort Smith Animal Hospital (in Melbourne) have had animals brought in from as far away as Seymour (110 kms), Geelong (80 kms) and Dandenong (45 kms) as they are one of the few shelters open at night (till midnight). The shelters will record information about your pet and ring you if an animal fitting that description comes in. They need information on the area your pet was lost in, the breed and colour of your pet, its age, whether it was wearing a collar and/or ID. They will need contact numbers and names should the animal come to their shelter. They also record this information for found animals and can sometimes put owner and finder together.
  
  
• Contact your local Council and all Councils in the surrounding area. Visit each pound and check road depots (in case your animal has been killed on the road). Also find out if your council has an arrangement with a shelter to pick up stray animals, especially at night. For example, both the RSPCA and the Lost Dog's Home contract for ranger services here in Melbourne.
  
  
• Update your details if you have moved address since you registered your pet with your council or, if your pet is microchipped, the microchip record company. At this time notify them you have lost your pet.
  
  
• Advise your local police.
  
  
• Visit all shelters in your city. This is especially important for the bigger shelters such as the Lost Dogs' Home and RSPCA. Sometimes the guess of breed or age is wrong. This is particularly important with cats, as they aren't as easily described.
  
  
• Advertise the loss of your pet in local newspaper and the big city dailies. Check all papers thoroughly. Look in all columns dealing with animals and the "Lost and Found".
  
  
• Contact your local radio stations. Some will make free announcements however the best approach is to ask for help not demand an announcement.
  
  
• Contact your breed's association - often clubs have a "rescue service" set up to retrieve animals of their breed from public facilities and house them until either the original owner can be traced or a new home arranged.
  
  
• Please note, thought should be given to how much private information is given on lost and found notices, either as paper flyers or on Internet sites such as Pet Alert, especially if a reward is offered. Unfortunately there have been reports of cruel hoaxes played on distressed pet owners looking for their pets. Keeping back an easily determined piece of information about your pet (such as one white paw or other obvious marking) may help identify your pet and a hoax from a genuine reply.
  
  
• Please remove all posters from public property and inform all others that were aware of the search after the animal has been found, or after a reasonable amount of time has passed. This makes it easier for the next person who is looking for assistance.
  
  

What to do if you have found an animal

• If you find a pet always the first thing you must do is confine it. Don't put it in with your pet/s as this may lead to fighting and injury to either the found animal or your pet/s.
  
  
• Do not let the animal go back on the street. This can lead to the pet being injured or killed, and may result in a car accident that could harm a human.
  
  
• If the animal is wearing a collar then take it off and look for any tags. If there are no tags check the inside of the collar as some people will write a phone number or name there. put it back on when you have finished.
  
  
• Try to identify as much about the animal as you can. Is it male or female and has it been desexed? Look for ear tattoos inside both ears. Some pedigree dogs have numbers tattooed inside their ears as do dogs that have been sold from the Lost Dogs Home here in Melbourne. The desexing tattoo is a circle made up of about a dozen dots with a line through it. It can be in blue, green or black ink and is usually in the left ear (though not always). A M tattoo Iusually right ear) indicates a microchip however not all dogs that are microchipped will be tattooed.
  
  
• Have the pet scanned for a microchip at your local vet or at a shelter. Please note not all vets have a scanner so check with them first before taking the pet to them. Also microchips sometimes don't scan - the chip might not be compatible with the scanner being used, or it has moved so that it is missed - so that is is sometimes worth having the pet rescanned with a different scanner and operator. Walk through, multichip scanner that are often owned by big shelters are more sensitive than handheld scanners.
  
  
• If you are unwilling to keep the pet any length of time the next step is either take the animal to a pound or shelter or contact the council ranger and have him pick the animal up. In Melbourne many of the councils use the Lost Dogs Home or RSPCA to collect stray animals at night so you may find the pet goes to one of these shelters. It is a good idea to find out where it is going as if you do find the owner then you can tell them where to look.
  

At this point you have ensured the animal's safety but you can do more if you wish.